July 22, 2025 • 50 mins
Have you been conditioned to believe that nutrition's only purpose is weight management? This groundbreaking conversation with mental health nutritionist Dr. David Wiss shatters that myth, revealing how the food industry has deliberately gaslit us into focusing on calories rather than food quality.
Drawing from his journey as a registered dietitian turned whistleblower, Dr. Wiss explains how he discovered troubling conflicts of interest in nutrition education. Food companies sponsor webinars about the "safety" of high fructose corn syrup while promoting the oversimplified calories-in-calories-out model that keeps us trapped in diet mentality. Meanwhile, the profound connections between ultra-processed foods and mental health challenges remain largely unexplored in conventional healthcare.
The functional medicine approach offers a revolutionary alternative. Rather than treating symptoms in isolation, it connects mental, physical, and spiritual health through systems biology. This comprehensive framework examines a person's entire life history—from childhood eating patterns to antibiotic use, trauma experiences, and beyond—to understand how these factors collectively impact health. For those struggling with addiction, depression, anxiety, or other mental health challenges, this approach provides crucial missing pieces that conventional treatment often overlooks.
Most striking is Dr. Wiss's rallying cry: "Sanity before vanity." This philosophy prioritizes using nutrition to enhance mental wellbeing, quality of life, and relationship health rather than appearance. The difference between 1,000 calories of Doritos and 1,000 calories of nutrient-dense food might be negligible for weight loss, but profoundly different for brain function and emotional regulation.
Ready to reclaim nutrition as a powerful tool for mental health? Explore David's app "Wise Mind Nutrition" for a qualitative approach that moves beyond calorie counting. Your brain deserves better than diet culture—discover what becomes possible when you nourish your mind as carefully as you would any other vital organ.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jenn Schmitz (00:02):
Well, hey, everybody, you have been gaslit
into believing that nutrition isonly relevant for weight loss.
We are your whistleblowingshrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen, and you havelanded yourself on the Gaslit
Truth podcast.
Today we have a special guest,and our guest today is David
Wiss.
David is a mental healthnutritionist and scientist.
(00:23):
Dr David Wiss, not Weiss,Welcome to the show.
Dr David Wiss (00:27):
Thank you so much for having me.
Dr Teralyn Sell (00:30):
Got it right.
I'm so excited to have you herebecause I didn't know you, but
I saw you, like seven years ago,and I know that you have
changed exponentially since thattime changed exponentially
since that time, but you wereone of the first, I would say,
relevant entrances for me in theyes, I'm on the right path with
(00:51):
nutrition and mental health andaddiction and all that stuff,
and since then, like Jen and I,the growth has been exponential.
So I cannot wait to dive inwith you now, because you didn't
have a PhD back then either, sothat's relatively new.
Dr David Wiss (01:07):
Yes, I remember building a niche using nutrition
to help people recover fromaddiction and it was a
revolutionary idea and I gotsome pushback, but I also got a
lot of really great engagement.
Dr Teralyn Sell (01:22):
Oh good, Because mostly I just get pushed
back.
Jenn Schmitz (01:24):
But yeah, I was going to say anytime we bring
nutrition into the addictionspace, it is we are shunned
within that we are told it's outof our wheelhouse, there is no
research to support it, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera,
and it's just like.
It's like fucking getting old,it's just getting old.
It's getting old and old, like12, come on, guys.
12-step model of shamingyourself for addiction is not
(01:48):
going to heal you.
I'm sorry, it's just not.
Dr David Wiss (01:51):
It's time for holistic approaches, functional
medicine, mental health.
Let's do it.
Dr Teralyn Sell (01:59):
Let's do it first to set things off like
functional medicine as adefinition, because I think it's
getting a bad rap, reallymeaning something that it
doesn't mean.
So maybe we could start thereas kind of a baseline
explanation.
What do you think?
Dr David Wiss (02:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think most people think
of the term.
You know root cause medicine,but in today's world it's really
starting to describe, you know,alternative paths and I think
that you know functionalmedicine for a lot of people
means things that are notreadily acceptable by
(02:38):
conventional medicine.
But a really good functionalmedicine approach is going to
combine wisdom from a lot ofdifferent areas and bring them
together, to be morecomprehensive and to really look
at someone's life history.
The timeline, I think, is thekey to functional medicine being
able to see the big picturerather than just the immediate
(03:00):
symptoms.
Dr Teralyn Sell (03:02):
I think that's a really important part of the
discussion is the history of thehuman.
How did you get to this point?
And we're not talking about thehistory to drill down into
trauma and stuff you can butalso the history in what was
your life like growing up aroundthe table?
(03:22):
What was your first entranceinto maybe medication, and why
was that going on?
For you, I think thedifferentiation is the history.
Taking that we do in mentalhealth is just very, to me,
rudimentary how many siblings doyou have and what kind of
household did you grow up in?
And that kind of stuff, yoursocioeconomic status, those
(03:44):
things are still important.
But I think functional medicinekind of takes it to a different
level, doesn't it?
Dr David Wiss (03:49):
Yes, helps connect the dots across
different domains mental health,physical health, spiritual
health and brings it alltogether using systems biology.
What is systems biology?
(04:19):
Um, it really helps peoplebecause there's a lot of head
scratching in in medicine and inuh treatment and recovery, and
a really great gift that we cangive to our clients is being
able to help them connect someof those dots and make sense out
of it.
Even if there aren't reallyclear treatment plans for
(04:40):
everything uh, being able to seehow it all comes together can
reduce anxiety and give someoneat least a little bit of glimpse
of hope for moving forward.
Jenn Schmitz (04:50):
Right.
So it's this idea of notsiloing all of these different
areas and more so, looking atthis idea that they actually all
work interchangeably, that'sright.
It's all one system, right yeah?
Dr David Wiss (05:02):
So functional medicine requires that you
develop some expertise in areasthat might be a little
challenging.
Jenn Schmitz (05:08):
Ah, yes, yes, and it kind of is.
It's a rabbit hole as someonewho's newer in the functional
medicine world and only has, youknow, a couple of years of
really working through some ofthis.
It's a huge rabbit hole, butyet it makes a lot of sense once
you start to go down that.
Um, as a traditional therapistwho would normally ask about
those, the family systems andthe dynamics and what's the
(05:31):
dinner table look like questionsright Versus tell me about the
sicknesses you had throughoutyour life.
Tell me about all of the drugsthat you've taken.
Were you on antibiotics?
I've had clients.
Why are you asking me if I'vebeen on antibiotics, jen?
And then I have to explain tothem this connection that occurs
(06:19):
, right?
I had a client who was justblown away when I was like, were
you ever, you know like bit bya tick when you were younger?
Tell me a little bit about likewe've went through before, dr
Terry and I, with like pans orpandas, right, and what that
actually is, and why we askthese's beauty because we start
to give them more options versusjust this traditional Western
view of what those things aren't.
All those systems aren'tconnected, all cells, all
systems.
That doesn't make sense.
Dr David Wiss (06:33):
So in a 50 minute intake session, if in the last
few minutes I can retellsomeone's story in a way that
they haven't heard it before, itcan build a lot of rapport.
Oh, yeah, yes, and what's thebeauty of rapport?
The therapeutic relationship,trust.
Is this a test?
Dr Teralyn Sell (07:00):
No, but I just want everybody to say that over
and over and over again, becausethe therapeutic relationship is
the biggest change agent ofworking with someone, and that
sounds terrible, but like thebuy change agent of working with
someone, and that the soundsterrible, but like the buy-in of
the whole thing.
Um, it's that, it's thatrelationship, and so I do so you
have, don't you have?
Your aren't you a dietitian aswell, don't you have?
Dr David Wiss (07:19):
Yes, blasphemy on my on my road to becoming a PhD
, I am also a registereddietitian nutritionist.
It's funny, you know I workedas a personal trainer when I
really got into wellness in myearly 20s, after college, and
that sort of led me through gradschool to become a registered
(07:39):
dietitian, started my ownprivate practice and then saw
after a few years that I wantedto go deeper and have worked in
that space since getting my PhD.
Dr Teralyn Sell (07:50):
Now moving more broadly into the field of
mental health, yeah, so what didyou notice as the why did you
want to be a dietitian numberone?
And then, after you were inthat space, what did you notice
were some of the deficits there.
Dr David Wiss (08:06):
Yeah, I definitely had some compromised
life chances.
You know, when I had to resetin my early 20s I didn't come
from a like a track record ofsuccess.
I had some low spots in myearly 20s and I pivoted and I
said, wow, what feels accessibleto me?
And I got really into nutritionfor my own healing journey.
(08:28):
You know, the physicaldimension of wellness
revolutionized me sunlight,sleep, water supplements.
I had one of those rapidtransformations that everyone
kind of hopes they're going tohave that within a few months.
Everyone's like whoa, you'redifferent, what did you do?
Can you show me the way?
And so that path became welllit for me and I thought maybe
(08:50):
nutrition was going to get alittle bit more attention in
upcoming years.
And so I leaned into it.
And you know, when I got toschool to become a dietitian, I
was pretty quickly disappointed.
There's definitely a culturethere where they're teaching you
you're going to be America'snutrition expert, you're going
(09:12):
to work in a hospital, peopleare going to respect you, you're
going to make an impact onpatient lives.
And there was hope.
But when I was in school, I didlearn pretty quickly that a lot
of the information we weregetting seemed to be more geared
toward promoting the foodindustry's interests rather than
(09:33):
promoting public health streetculture.
But I have an antenna thatpicks up agendas and I saw
agendas in the curriculum thatother students didn't see and I
said, hey, are you guys pickingup on this?
(09:53):
We're getting a webinar rightnow about the safety of high
fructose corn syrup from theCorn Refiners Association.
We were told that a calorie isa calorie.
There's nothing wrong with fooddyes.
These things are all safe.
Just make sure people get theright amount of grams of protein
(10:14):
.
And you're going to be amedical nutrition therapist.
And I was scratching my head andpushing back and I started to
really enter that phase wherepeople looked at me like a
renegade what's wrong with thisguy?
Why can't he just join?
Why can't you just do whatwe're all doing?
And I said there's somethingfishy here.
And my nervous system picked itup really early on, and that's
(10:38):
when I knew I wasn't going tofollow a traditional dietetic
path.
There's pathways there for you.
You can work in a hospital, youcan do this.
I knew from the gate I was nevergoing to follow a traditional
dietetic path.
You know there's there'spathways there for you.
You can work in a hospital.
You can do this.
I knew from the gate I wasnever going to do any of those
things, that I was going to sortof blaze my own path.
So my master's thesis wasactually called nutrition and
substance abuse and I took adeep dive into the literature on
(11:00):
how different substances canaffect gastrointestinal health
and people that had addictionhistories being more likely to
be depressed.
How does that play out witheating, overeating, et cetera?
And that's when I got intoeating disorders and food
addiction, what we now callultra processed food addiction.
(11:22):
So yeah, I knew early on that Iwas going to try to step into
some uncomfortable places, andI'm really glad that I have, but
progress has been slow.
Dr Teralyn Sell (11:34):
Yeah, no, I agree with the.
Progress has been slow andsometimes that's the thing it it
.
It takes you from being whatyou need to be, because it's
like why is this so slow?
Why is there such resistanceand so many barriers to entry
here?
Why can't other people just geton board with what we know to
also be true, right?
(11:55):
So, even like the ultraprocessed food stuff, what do
you know to be true with ultraprocessed foods and mental
wellbeing?
Dr David Wiss (12:02):
Yeah, I mean it's crystal clear that when food
undergoes ultra processing, notonly are there additives sugar,
salts, fats, food additives,emulsifiers the list goes on but
there's also a lot of stuffthat's lost from the food during
ultra processing.
A lot of the sensitivephytonutrients and minerals.
(12:25):
They're all stripped duringhigh heat processes and then you
add in, you know, plastics andthe contact with the metals, and
you're getting food thatactivates dopamine, that
registers as rewarding andsurvival promoting.
That's actually a pretty uhnutrient void as well as pro
(12:46):
inflammatory.
So it's.
It's really clever because whena dopamine response is elicited
, right, it actually convincesthe brain that it's doing
something that's favorable, whenthe opposite is true, Right, so
so did you just say that, uh,that foods are made to be
favorable.
Foods are engineered for maximumpalatability, to profit
(13:12):
maximize, and it's done so atthe expense of public health.
Dr Teralyn Sell (13:16):
Where did you learn that?
Where did that first come intofocus for you?
Dr David Wiss (13:20):
Yeah, so when I was an early dietitian, we
actually formed a group calledDietitians for Professional
Integrity and we werewhistleblowing in the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics becauseat the annual conferences there
were a lot of speakers whoworked for the food industry and
at the time those conflicts ofinterest were not disclosed.
(13:43):
So this was the part thatreally activated me early in my
career.
In medicine, when people workfor pharmaceutical companies,
there was a huge push towardsdisclosures and in the nutrition
field, disclosure was notreally a topic.
So we formed a small group ofrenegade dietitians to be able
(14:04):
to pull the curtain back onwhere these conflicts of
interest were.
And basically, we're asking forgreater transparency in our
parent organization.
Where does the funding comefrom?
Why are these positionstatements favoring industry?
You know, why are we sayingit's all foods fit?
(14:27):
Why are we saying thatartificial sweeteners are safe?
What is the agenda here?
And it was a really excitingtime because, you know, part of
me was like, oh, I'm gettingblacklisted.
You know, yeah, this is goingto be challenging for my career,
but I think the biggest partthat came out of that was you
(14:49):
know, michael Moss wrote a bookSalt, sugar, fat.
I think it was 2014.
And that book really opened myeyes to the food industry's use
of, you know, laboratories thatwere used during tobacco
development, and the sameplaybook that tobacco industry
used to maximize the rewardingproperties of their cigarettes
(15:12):
they were now using with food,calculating the bliss point to
the milligram of sugar or sodium.
And, as someone that has asensitive brain, I do have a
history of some addiction stuffin my early 20s and late teens.
You know I could sense thesalience, you know, probably
(15:32):
more than others could.
And, yeah, I became fascinatedin the link between nutrition,
food and neuroscience and howthat affects behavior, and
that's always been my interestas a behavioral health
nutritionist.
Dr Teralyn Sell (15:48):
That's really quite fascinating, and I know
you listen to your talk all day.
Jenn Schmitz (15:53):
I know I'm just like I can't even ask him
questions, because I'm soeloquent how you're saying it.
I'm like I know we got to wrapweight loss into this at some
point, but I'm just going tojust keep listening to your talk
right now, Cause.
Dr Teralyn Sell (16:06):
Well, well, I think it it.
It is such a parallel to whatJen and I talk about with big
pharma and therapists right,it's the same thing, it's the
same thing.
It's like they all took thesame chapter out of a playbook
and they're just like let'srepeat, let's repeat let's
repeat.
Jenn Schmitz (16:25):
Let's repeat Because it works.
Because it works, I mean, itcreates the forever consumer and
you're in it, and I'm sojealous of what you said.
I'm just going to throw thisout and be transparent.
I'm super jealous of this ideathat when you were in school,
you were in a space of likethere were these feelers out
there and I'm just like wait aminute, this doesn't make sense,
(16:48):
right, cause I never got there.
I never got there until afterthe degrees and after 15 years
of practice, right Like I didn'tget there.
So the fact that you had thatinquisition so early on.
That that's profound to mebecause most people don't have
that.
Dr David Wiss (17:08):
There was also a sense of all right, I got to
drink the Kool-Aid a little bitand get on board so I can pass
this exam.
And then I can move on andforget some of this
indoctrination and start tothink about the bigger picture.
Jenn Schmitz (17:22):
Is Red 40 healthy Circle, yes or no?
Okay, yes, fine, I'm just goingto fucking circle.
Yes, because it's all I can doright now.
Dr Teralyn Sell (17:28):
Okay, you know this reminds me of when I first
took one of my very firstaddiction licensure exams years
ago.
The advice I got was whateveryou believe to be the truth,
it's probably the opposite ofthat.
So circle that answer on thereand that's what I did and I
passed and I was like, wow, theywere spot on, you know.
(17:48):
So it was interesting.
Dr David Wiss (17:50):
And the playbook from you know, big pharma and
big food in your example, bigpharma and the mental health
therapy field, big food and thenutrition field has a lot of
similarities, as you mentioned,and their playbook is quite
impressive, right In terms offinding ways to lean on the
(18:13):
social determinants of healthand create emotionally charged
issues that pit people againstthemselves, so that everyone's
focused on individual factorsrather than systemic issues.
And so, yeah, I've really takena deeper dive in recent years
when I started studying thecommercial determinants of
health and being able to see allthe factors that are at play
(18:36):
behind the scenes and howcommercial actors use media
control and gaslight people andbasically have a very clear
agenda to get people fightingamongst themselves so they don't
see the bigger picture.
Jenn Schmitz (18:52):
Yeah, well said.
That's exactly what it is.
Are you running for political?
Dr Teralyn Sell (18:57):
office anytime soon, because I feel like you
could.
Do you have a button?
Yeah, I want to.
I heart David Wiss.
Button Vote for.
David, yeah, I can't like.
Thank you, what do you say?
What do you say now?
Because I know you callyourself a nutritionist and is
that by design?
Because you've you've kind ofpivoted away title registered
(19:19):
dietitian may actually behurting me more than helping me.
Dr David Wiss (19:44):
I am proud of who I progress made in terms of,
you know, getting nutritionintegrated into the healthcare
system, and the ParentOrganization Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics issupposed to be an advocate to
help.
Their 100,000 plusdietitiansians, like you know,
increase in status and I thinkpublic perception of the
(20:08):
registered dietitian is at anall time low and I haven't got
the sense that any progress hasbeen made.
And when you look at the energyin the field, there's this kind
of culture of we got to rally,we got to stick together, let's
go to Washington in March andlet's go rise our collective
(20:30):
voices to get nutritionrecognized in the healthcare
system, and nothing has happened.
My entire career and so thisyear is the first year I did not
renew my membership at theAcademy of Nutrition and
Dietetics.
I said I've been at this for 13years and I am sick of watching
(20:51):
people complain about otherprofessionals moving in on the
space.
People are not elevatingthemselves, they're basically
just upset about other peoplebeing nutritionists.
And I'm like we need tocollaborate, we need to have
intelligent discussions andreally I think that's where I
(21:12):
decided that my annualconference is going to be the
Institute of Functional Medicineand I'm not going to the
nutrition conference anymore.
Welcome.
Dr Teralyn Sell (21:20):
Welcome.
Did you go to the IMMH?
Dr David Wiss (21:23):
or did you?
No, I haven't been to that oneyet, but I'm definitely keeping
it on my radar.
Dr Teralyn Sell (21:29):
It should be.
It's really good.
I went for the first time lastyear.
I haven't gone to the IFM, butI'll go to the IMMH again.
But yeah, I agree.
Jenn Schmitz (21:36):
That's a tough space, for as you're talking,
terry and I both start smiling,nodding at the same time, and I
know exactly what she wasthinking.
And it is this idea that evenwhen we write our titles right
like the therapist,psychotherapist, mental health
(21:59):
therapist there is adissatisfaction that I feel
internally with myself becausethe amount of westernized
education and damage that hasoccurred over the years using
that title, even right Likesometimes I type my name on here
for to come into our programhere, everyone that's watching
on YouTube and sometimes I'mlike I might just write Jen and
for a while I was writingDeprescriber Jen, because I'm
(22:20):
like I don't even like writingtherapist feels yucky, just like
what you're describing, becausewe know the amount of like
damage that's been done withinthis and even though we're
speaking against it and tryingto talk about like the
alternative perspectives to it,which we're part of it.
Like, yeah, we are, we are partof it, you know, so I get that.
Dr Teralyn Sell (22:42):
A cognitive dissonance is surreal at this
point.
Dr David Wiss (22:46):
Yes, I struggle with titles quite a bit because
the you know, the areas that I'mmost aligned with are
nutritional psychiatry andnutritional psychology and I
can't call myself a nutritionalpsychiatrist because that's
misleading, because I'm not apsychiatrist or a nutritional
psychologist.
I have a doctorate, I practicefunctional medicine, but it
(23:08):
would be misleading to callmyself a functional medicine
doctor.
So I'm left with this title,confusion right.
And I've, you know, movedthrough some different ways to
describe myself and I've beenusing mental health nutritionist
lately and it's not a utilizedterm, so we'll see if it picks
(23:31):
up.
Dr Teralyn Sell (23:31):
We're taking up our own.
It's funny because I've made updifferent titles for myself,
because nobody understands whatit is that I do.
And I will tell you this I havea doctorate in psychology and
in this space nobody thinks it'senough, like it's just.
(23:52):
It's crazy the amount ofpushback I get for not being a
real doctor.
If I were a real doctor, then Icould talk about big pharma, big
food, all these things thatyour real doctors aren't talking
about, by the way, none of themare talking about any of this
stuff.
So what is your doctorate in?
Dr David Wiss (24:07):
Yeah, I have a PhD from UCLA in public health
and I had a minor in healthpsychology and I loved health
psychology.
I had such a blast in thatdepartment, yes, yes.
Quick side note criticism aboutmy field as registered
dietitians.
There are levels, right thesame way there are for
registered nurses or physicaltherapists.
There, registered dietitians,there are levels right the same
way there are for registerednurses or a physical therapist.
(24:28):
There are dietitians that don'thave master's degrees.
There's master's leveldietitian.
And then there's some of usthat have doctorates and the
healthcare system recognizesthem as identical.
So insurance would pay the samefor an RD who had a bachelor's
versus an RD who had a doctorate.
(24:48):
So it basically forces those ofus at the higher level outside
of the healthcare system.
Dr Teralyn Sell (24:54):
Very much so.
The difference between amaster's level therapist and a
PhD in private practice is acouple dollars an hour per
insurance, a couple dollars.
So it's really ridiculous.
There's really not muchincentive for anyone to move
past the master's level.
So, yeah, it's really.
It's so similar, these systemsare so similar.
(25:16):
I didn't realize the parallelshere.
Dr David Wiss (25:19):
Parallels and the same way that you know, venture
capital firms have, you know,bought up, like insurance
contracts, to promote telehealthservices with mental health
therapists and are basicallyoffering people work from home.
You'll get a full schedule.
Jenn Schmitz (25:37):
I get an email every week.
I get a spam text or email onit every single week.
Dr David Wiss (25:41):
You'll get this busy schedule, you'll get a low
rate, but you don't have to doanything, and that essentially
just drives the competitive ratedown.
The same thing has happened inmy field, where dietitians have
been decimated and are workingfor less and less, and the rate
for dietitian services is goingdown, going down.
(26:04):
It's less than it was when Istarted 13 years ago.
Dr Teralyn Sell (26:08):
That's insane.
What 13 years ago?
It's less than that.
That's insane.
Dr David Wiss (26:13):
My rate has gone up, but that's because I don't
work in the healthcare system.
Dr Teralyn Sell (26:17):
Right right, All right.
So here's the question du jour.
When we look at the differencebetween a dietician and a
nutritionist who has actuallybeen to school, what are the
differences that you see?
Having done and had both, Likewhat do you?
How can we differentiate thatin the general population?
Dr David Wiss (26:38):
Yeah, nutritionist has no formal
definition.
So technically anyone couldcall themselves a nutritionist.
And I think that's wherethere's a lot of contention and
disagreement and debate is thatyou know a registered dietitian
when I started it was just RD,and then you know we moved into
registered dietitian,nutritionist.
(27:00):
So a registered dietitian is akind of nutritionist.
It's a specific type and thatit is recognized by the
healthcare system.
So in a hospital or in aneating disorder clinic there
tends to be a requirement for aregistered dietitian and you
know that makes it the norm, Ithink, or maybe the mainstream
(27:24):
nutritionist, but there's plentyof others.
There's a CNS certifiednutrition specialist and any
other allied health professionalthat gets some sort of training
can call themselves anutritionist.
So it's a murky area becausethe criticism is that someone
(27:46):
got a three-month online degreeand now they call themselves a
nutritionist and so it's createdthis culture war in my field
where you know the dietitiansare like we're not nutritionists
, we're dietitians.
And we went to school and wehad to do this and we did an
internship and we sat for anexam and I've been so exhausted
(28:09):
watching the infighting going onfor all these years and you
know I do remember in school andin the internship, this message
of you know, you're thedietician, you're the expert,
you are the one and seeing thatsort of play out you know.
I remember when I was in myinternship and I went to a
hospital, they sure didn't treatme like the expert, right?
(28:31):
I was like the bottom of thetotem pole in the hospital.
They sure didn't treat me likethe expert, right, I was like
the bottom of the totem pole inthe hospital, right.
And so there are a lot ofpeople that are disenfranchised
and disillusioned.
In my field I've had a lot ofcolleagues leave basically and
say this isn't a worthwhilecareer.
I'm not making any money and Ithink the biggest challenge of
it is that there isn't.
(28:52):
I have a lot of jobsatisfaction, but for a lot of
my colleagues there isn't a lotof job satisfaction, and this is
really based on the assumptionsthat are made about what the
job entails, right?
So if someone's a dietician,there does seem to be people
that are, you know, attracted tothat person because they want a
(29:14):
calorie calculated meal plan,they want to be given a very
specific diet.
And you know, I think dietitianlends itself to go see a
dietitian when you need someoneto do some calculations for you
right To figure out exactly howmany grams of protein you need
(29:35):
and how to fit that in, and Ihave never done that type of
work.
But in 13 years, the amount ofpeople that reach out to me
because they assume that my joblooks a certain way.
I spend a lot of time managingpeople's assumptions and
providing some re-educationabout what kind of work you can
(29:56):
do together.
Jenn Schmitz (29:58):
Right, is that called informed consent?
Like, are you informedconsenting the shit out of
people?
Okay, you tied this right intothis idea that we started with.
Tell us how the idea ofnutrition and weight loss, that
concept Okay, cause you'retalking about calorie counting.
Okay, like, we're talking abouta very structured, itemized
(30:21):
like table of what.
Here's what you follow, here'swhat you are taking in.
Tell us when we started here,just so everybody knows, we said
to David we said we're figuringthis hook out.
Tell us the hill that you'regoing to die on now, because the
hill that you were going to dieon eight years ago is different
than the hill you're going todie on today.
And your hook you came up withright here is people are gaslit
(30:43):
into believing this idea thatnutrition is only relevant for
weight loss.
Dr David Wiss (30:47):
Yes.
Jenn Schmitz (30:48):
What does that mean?
How has it?
Dr David Wiss (30:49):
changed.
The Western medicine modelusually necessitates a referral
from an MD for these ongoingservices and so the dietician
was sort of built in.
If there was type two diabetes,perhaps hypertension or BMI
(31:10):
above 30, that would generate areferral to a dietitian, and the
Western medicine model has longheld the assumption that if
someone is in a larger body, ifthey lose weight, a lot of their
comorbidities will go away.
So the dietitian has beenlinked to this referral.
For I'm going to help someonelose weight and you know, when I
was in school I was soembarrassed One of their major
(31:33):
teaching tools were these foodmodels.
You guys ever seen thosedietitians are like, given these
models that help teach peopleportion sizes?
That, like that was theeducation in the outpatient
clinic is that you were going totell someone what their
calories were and what anappropriate portion size was for
(31:54):
them to meet those caloricneeds.
And I just remember thinkingthis completely ignores all the
neuroscience of eating.
All the information we haveabout behavior change, barriers
related to trauma, the entiremental health picture is
completely ignored by thisassumption that people eat a
(32:14):
certain way because they don'tknow what the appropriate
portion size is right.
Dr Teralyn Sell (32:20):
I'm thinking wait, I went to school, spent
all this money to be given aplate With the little pictures
on it With the thing and learn acalorie counter, but that
reminds me of therapists, though, going to school and learning
how to, you know, do amanualized workbook for people.
Like it's the same shit.
Like it's the same, it'sexactly so it takes into account
(32:42):
zero human experience nothingart.
Dr David Wiss (32:45):
There you go, one size fits all and it's centered
on the assumption of personalresponsibility, which you you
know, of course I'm not against.
I'm all for personalresponsibility, uh, but I I
think I think that's done anumber on the food world,
because people have internalizedthis idea that if there is a
(33:06):
change they want to make andthey're unable to make it, it's
because they don't have theright information or they don't
want it bad enough.
And then you internalize theshame and the weight stigma
around it and then it justperpetuates the disappointment
and isolation.
And yeah, I'll never it's justlike the addiction model.
Dr Teralyn Sell (33:26):
Yeah, it does, because I'm also thinking about
metabolic weight gain.
When you're on certainmedications and I remember Jen
and I worked in the same placeit was a prison and these guys
would be put on thesemedications.
They'd gain 80, 90, 100 poundsand then they'd be put on a
special diet and I'm like I'msorry, but that diet is not
(33:50):
going to counteract thismetabolic weight gain from this
medication, but it's going tomake you feel like a fricking
failure because you can't do itright.
Jenn Schmitz (33:59):
Well, and not to mention, like the gut dysbiosis
that exists for theseindividuals, going all the way
back to like meds they took whenthey were younger.
Medical interventions, trauma,like come on Right, but like
that's nope.
Dr David Wiss (34:14):
So yeah, my group practice, which is called
nutrition and recovery, hasbrought dietitians into mental
health treatment centers, and sofor a long time, you know, we
run groups and do one on onecounseling for adolescents and
adults that have addictionhistories or other mental health
challenges, and I've seen thatall the time the patient is
(34:39):
gaining weight from a medicationand this is when they say, oh,
bring the dietician in, hey, fixthis right.
And that the dietician's role isthere for, dietitian's role is
there for calorie centric, mathcentric, weight management
(34:59):
purposes, rather than helpingsomeone understand gut dysbiosis
, inflammation, eating tooptimize neurotransmitter
function all these incrediblethings that a nutritionist
should be able to do getsoverlooked and it gets reduced
to this more almost vanity,focused, appearance focused
approach to food, and I thinkthat's given nutrition such a
(35:22):
bad reputation.
So I've been screaming fromthat hilltops sanity before
vanity.
Let's use nutrition to improvemental health and let's use it
to improve quality of life,relational health, being able to
look the world in the eye,build self-efficacy, and if we
can move past thesereductionistic models of
(35:44):
calories in, calories out, Ithink the field could go much
further.
Dr Teralyn Sell (35:50):
I agree 100% and I watch these dieticians on
TikTok and they do that.
It's just the calorie and nocalorie is different than
another calorie.
And although that might be true, you know, a calorie is a
calorie, maybe, but what aboutthe nutritional value of the
food?
Right Like, I can eat a,000calories of Doritos, correct,
(36:15):
and lose weight.
Or I could eat 1,000 caloriesof nutritious food and lose
weight.
It's so archaic, but how am Igoing to feel on the Doritos?
Right Like, how am I going tofeel?
Jenn Schmitz (36:24):
It's so archaic.
Are we back in the early 2000s,eating Snackwell 100-calorie
packs every single fucking dayand going it's okay because it's
only 100 calories?
It's such an archaic thoughtprocess.
We have evolved beyond that,research has evolved beyond that
, the field of nutrition hasevolved beyond that, but yet
(36:46):
that's still part of what'shappening.
Is what you're saying, david?
This is still very real.
Dr David Wiss (36:52):
It's still very real and it is a message that
does support the food industry'sinterests to get people focused
on quantities of food ratherthan the qualities of food, and
that's why the ultra-processedfood conversation is so
important.
They're like well, you just gotto count your calories.
Here's an app and, by the way,here's a reduced calorie version
(37:15):
for you because we're here tohelp.
And I've also noticed thatthere's a particular
psychological profile associatedwith people that are really
into calories, because it reallyfeels empowering.
Some people are able tomanipulate those variables and
increase their exercise, reducetheir calories and move their
(37:36):
weight and they kind of movethrough the world with an
assumption that you know that'show it is and that's how it
should be and if, if you know,knowledge is power, you know you
can do this.
And it's almost like um, apersonal trainer kind of mindset
, in a little bit of like no,it's simple math, just do it
right, I'll help you.
(37:57):
And those of us that are reallyinterested in mental health,
trauma-informed work know thatit's much more complex and
nuanced.
Jenn Schmitz (38:06):
Yeah, you can't outgrit addiction in that way.
You can't outgrit these things.
You can't outgrit a reallyshitty food intake of what
you're eating.
You might think that there'sthis I don't have enough
resiliency or I got to fightharder.
But when you're putting in yourmouth and into your body things
(38:26):
that are actuallycontraindicated, things your
body can't process, things thatare actually toxic to your body,
things that are actually toxicto your body, things that are
ruining those neurotransmitterpathways, you're trying to
outgrit something.
Right?
You got to be stronger.
All the addiction clients wehave.
I'm not strong enough.
I got to be stronger.
No, actually, there's just acomplete non-optimization of
(38:47):
your brain right now.
That's happening because ofwhat you're putting in your body
.
So that theory, that battle cryI think that's out there within
this is like, well, I'm justnot tough enough and strong
enough, right?
So we have clients that come tous all the time.
I had one, like two weeks ago,who got so mad when I said when
you're ready to stop tracking onan app all of the things you
(39:10):
eat and all the calories you eat, and I don't throw people on
the bus, right?
But it was a nutritionist.
I went to see a nutritionistand said this is how you've got
to do it, right.
And they're showing me the app,they're showing me the
paperwork, right, like that theywere given.
And I said you let me know whenyou're ready to stop doing that
and we start to just payattention to the types of foods
that you're eating and you stopcounting calories.
(39:30):
Your life's going to fuckingchange and they got very upset
with me.
Dr Teralyn Sell (39:34):
They haven't come back to see me since.
Well, it's because diet cultureis such big money.
I mean, losing weight is bigmoney.
Jenn Schmitz (39:39):
It is, it is so even for nutritionists.
Dr Teralyn Sell (39:42):
You know, if you want to build a practice
like, do it on weight loss,because you're going to get the
most clients from that.
Dr David Wiss (39:48):
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Teralyn Sell (39:54):
I was saying to David before the episode
started.
I said it's really funny to mebecause I'll have.
I don't do weight loss, weightloss girl, everyone.
I do mental health.
But inevitably I'll ask, likewhat are your top three goals of
seeing seeing me blah, blah,blah, number one to lose weight.
I'm like, okay, all right, okay, we'll, we'll start there.
You know, it's interesting.
(40:15):
And there's also this uh, uh,there was a big, uh eating
disorder clinic near me that Iwas touring and they had out in
the middle of their lunch tableslike little bags of chips, you
know, like your Doritos and yourpotato chips, and all this
stuff.
And I said, why do you havethis here?
Well, because all calories arecalories.
Jenn Schmitz (40:37):
And I was like Talk about it, david.
I want to hear about that now.
We don't have a ton of time,but can you talk about this idea
of of disordered eating thatdevelops within this context, or
eating disorders that arealready present, and this is the
type of things that are beinggiven to these individuals?
Yes, like, can you talk?
Dr David Wiss (40:58):
about that briefly.
We started off saying that thefood industry has an agenda to
promote, you know, the caloriecentric model and to emphasize
personal responsibility, andthat's what trickles down
through training for dietitians.
Dietitians are the gatekeepersin eating disorder treatment, so
it makes sense that thatphilosophy would be prevalent.
(41:19):
Eating disorders are, you know,a really complex area because a
lot of eating disorders not allof them are characterized by
extreme fears, phobias andrestrictive tendencies.
So having a message of foodinclusivity and food positivity
is actually a good thing for asubset of people that have
(41:42):
eating disorders.
And I think you know, generallyspeaking, anorexia nervosa is
the eating disorder that has themost, you know, morbidity,
mortality, and it's scary topeople.
So in the field of eatingdisorders, it seems like
everyone prioritizes therestrictive tendencies of the
classic anorexia nervosa patient, which, in a case like that,
(42:06):
being able to promote a chip ora cookie, it actually could be a
very positive, recoveryoriented thing.
However, that subset of peopleis taken as the gold standard
truth for everyone that has aneating disorder.
So the food philosophy in thiscenter is very anorexia centric
(42:28):
and people are afraid to haveany alternative philosophies or
any competing theories becausethey're so protective of the
vulnerable person with therestrictive eating disorder.
So it's created a culture ofthis is how all eating disorders
are treated and used, and soyou could get someone in with a
(42:49):
substance use disorder, a foodaddiction, a binge eating
disorder, and they areessentially treated the same way
that someone with orthorexia,restrictive anorexia, presents.
You know from the stance offood philosophies.
And then we wonder why there'sso few treatment completions and
people are so dissatisfiedleaving treatment.
(43:11):
Is that there has been a lackof nuance in the eating disorder
space to be able to understandthe complexities of addiction,
metabolic disorder, and that thefield of eating disorders is
crumbling.
And that's really the spacethat I've occupied for so many
of these years watching theprofessional organizations get
(43:31):
smaller.
I went to Academy of EatingDisorders conference a few years
ago and they didn't even have a.
For so many of these yearswatching the professional
organizations get smaller, Iwent to Academy of Eating
Disorders conference a few yearsago and they didn't even have a
budget to serve us lunch.
I flew there, spent thousandsof dollars and I was in line in
the hotel buying a sandwich fromthe coffee shop for lunch.
I was like, oh, I'm nevercoming back here.
These organizations areshrinking and angry.
(43:54):
Angry about, you know, issuesrelated to weight stigma and
other important issues.
But again, it's all infightingand no progress.
Jenn Schmitz (44:06):
Right, it's all a one size fits.
All it's this, all thisapproach is just a one size fits
all right, Whether it's alittle disordered eating and
orthorexia, you've got bingeeating disorder.
Your bulimia doesn't matter,it's just the one size fits all.
Here's your potato chips on thetable.
Dr David Wiss (44:20):
Yeah, when people live in fight or flight, it's
hard to live in nuance in grayareas, and I think that's part
of the grand design as well.
Dr Teralyn Sell (44:29):
I have one more question, because this is
something that comes up a lot,and I just wanted to get your
take on this, because some ofthe pushback that I get on
social media or in person iseating healthy is too expensive,
and so I was wondering how youmight overcome something like
(44:50):
that.
When you hear those things,what are your thoughts?
Dr David Wiss (45:00):
Yeah, there are costs in this world and
obviously we use money as ourprimary measurement of it.
But if someone has the abilityto spend time learn how to cook,
you can buy food that's notoverly priced and learn how to
prepare it in ways that areenjoyable and even palatable.
But you know, especially livingin Los Angeles, right, like you
(45:27):
know, finances are a majorconcern with nutrition and I
would go as far as to say thatnutrition is a major unspoken
tool of oppression tomarginalized groups that don't
have access to high quality food, particularly in the prison
system and addiction treatment,other institutional settings.
But yeah, a lot of people justdon't want to get their hands
dirty.
There's barriers to cooking andcleaning, but it's probably the
(45:48):
biggest lever that I can pullis to move someone from being
averse to the kitchen to likebringing some joy there, being
able to turn on a song or getinto the right mindset and make
something that's not onlynutritious but also deeply
symbolic about a commitment tohealth, connecting to food,
(46:10):
connecting to nature and livingin an ecosystem that fosters
health, wellness rather thanillness.
Dr Teralyn Sell (46:19):
I love that.
Jenn Schmitz (46:20):
I love it too, oh, that's a great spot to wrap up
Sanity before vanity.
People, If you take anythingfrom this today, you need that.
Do you have that on a t-shirt?
Dr Teralyn Sell (46:30):
I know, do you have that?
It is some merch.
Jenn Schmitz (46:33):
Are you on a billboard in LA that says that
with your face on it?
Because if not, you need tomake that shit happen.
I'm getting there.
Dr David Wiss (46:40):
I also want to add that there are apps out
there that don't track caloriesand don't track macros.
There are other approaches tolooking at food qualitatively
rather than quantitatively, andthey're not as successful as the
MyFitnessPals and the calorietracking apps of the world,
because that's what people areprogrammed to believe that they
(47:02):
want.
But there are other approachesout there that are more geared
toward giving people what theyneed, which is a look at
qualitative nutrition overquantitative nutrition.
So my app is called Wise MindNutrition.
Jenn Schmitz (47:16):
Oh, love it, love it, yes.
Wise Mind Nutrition.
Oh, I'm going to check that out.
Okay, he has an app everybody.
Nutrition for mental health.
Dr Teralyn Sell (47:25):
Love it All right everybody.
Jenn Schmitz (47:26):
We'll put that in the show notes for you too, just
so you know All right, we areJen and Terry, the
whistleblowing mental maverick,deep throating informants that
are wrapping up today with DrDavid Wyss.
Thank you for coming on the show, david, it's been awesome, you
have brought some insight to ourlisteners that I guarantee you
they did not have, and some goodspots for getting inquisitive,
(47:48):
curious about.
So thank you for being on theshow.
Guys, if you want to send usyour gaslit stories, you can do
that at thegaslittruthpodcast atgmailcom.
You can also hit us up on anyof our socials.
Dm us.
We are on all the big ones.
Let us know what you think.
Only give us five stars and ifyou're feeling so inclined, buy
us a coffee, because, guess what?
(48:08):
We're doing this shit for freeand we're advocating in that way
.
So thank you again, david, forcoming on, and that's a wrap
everybody.
Well, hey, everybody, you have been gaslit
into believing that nutrition isonly relevant for weight loss.
We are your whistleblowingshrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen, and you havelanded yourself on the Gaslit
Truth podcast.
Today we have a special guest,and our guest today is David
Wiss.
David is a mental healthnutritionist and scientist.
(00:23):
Dr David Wiss, not Weiss,Welcome to the show.
Dr David Wiss (00:27):
Thank you so much for having me.
Dr Teralyn Sell (00:30):
Got it right.
I'm so excited to have you herebecause I didn't know you, but
I saw you, like seven years ago,and I know that you have
changed exponentially since thattime changed exponentially
since that time, but you wereone of the first, I would say,
relevant entrances for me in theyes, I'm on the right path with
(00:51):
nutrition and mental health andaddiction and all that stuff,
and since then, like Jen and I,the growth has been exponential.
So I cannot wait to dive inwith you now, because you didn't
have a PhD back then either, sothat's relatively new.
Dr David Wiss (01:07):
Yes, I remember building a niche using nutrition
to help people recover fromaddiction and it was a
revolutionary idea and I gotsome pushback, but I also got a
lot of really great engagement.
Dr Teralyn Sell (01:22):
Oh good, Because mostly I just get pushed
back.
Jenn Schmitz (01:24):
But yeah, I was going to say anytime we bring
nutrition into the addictionspace, it is we are shunned
within that we are told it's outof our wheelhouse, there is no
research to support it, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera,
and it's just like.
It's like fucking getting old,it's just getting old.
It's getting old and old, like12, come on, guys.
12-step model of shamingyourself for addiction is not
(01:48):
going to heal you.
I'm sorry, it's just not.
Dr David Wiss (01:51):
It's time for holistic approaches, functional
medicine, mental health.
Let's do it.
Dr Teralyn Sell (01:59):
Let's do it first to set things off like
functional medicine as adefinition, because I think it's
getting a bad rap, reallymeaning something that it
doesn't mean.
So maybe we could start thereas kind of a baseline
explanation.
What do you think?
Dr David Wiss (02:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think most people think
of the term.
You know root cause medicine,but in today's world it's really
starting to describe, you know,alternative paths and I think
that you know functionalmedicine for a lot of people
means things that are notreadily acceptable by
(02:38):
conventional medicine.
But a really good functionalmedicine approach is going to
combine wisdom from a lot ofdifferent areas and bring them
together, to be morecomprehensive and to really look
at someone's life history.
The timeline, I think, is thekey to functional medicine being
able to see the big picturerather than just the immediate
(03:00):
symptoms.
Dr Teralyn Sell (03:02):
I think that's a really important part of the
discussion is the history of thehuman.
How did you get to this point?
And we're not talking about thehistory to drill down into
trauma and stuff you can butalso the history in what was
your life like growing up aroundthe table?
(03:22):
What was your first entranceinto maybe medication, and why
was that going on?
For you, I think thedifferentiation is the history.
Taking that we do in mentalhealth is just very, to me,
rudimentary how many siblings doyou have and what kind of
household did you grow up in?
And that kind of stuff, yoursocioeconomic status, those
(03:44):
things are still important.
But I think functional medicinekind of takes it to a different
level, doesn't it?
Dr David Wiss (03:49):
Yes, helps connect the dots across
different domains mental health,physical health, spiritual
health and brings it alltogether using systems biology.
What is systems biology?
(04:19):
Um, it really helps peoplebecause there's a lot of head
scratching in in medicine and inuh treatment and recovery, and
a really great gift that we cangive to our clients is being
able to help them connect someof those dots and make sense out
of it.
Even if there aren't reallyclear treatment plans for
(04:40):
everything uh, being able to seehow it all comes together can
reduce anxiety and give someoneat least a little bit of glimpse
of hope for moving forward.
Jenn Schmitz (04:50):
Right.
So it's this idea of notsiloing all of these different
areas and more so, looking atthis idea that they actually all
work interchangeably, that'sright.
It's all one system, right yeah?
Dr David Wiss (05:02):
So functional medicine requires that you
develop some expertise in areasthat might be a little
challenging.
Jenn Schmitz (05:08):
Ah, yes, yes, and it kind of is.
It's a rabbit hole as someonewho's newer in the functional
medicine world and only has, youknow, a couple of years of
really working through some ofthis.
It's a huge rabbit hole, butyet it makes a lot of sense once
you start to go down that.
Um, as a traditional therapistwho would normally ask about
those, the family systems andthe dynamics and what's the
(05:31):
dinner table look like questionsright Versus tell me about the
sicknesses you had throughoutyour life.
Tell me about all of the drugsthat you've taken.
Were you on antibiotics?
I've had clients.
Why are you asking me if I'vebeen on antibiotics, jen?
And then I have to explain tothem this connection that occurs
(06:19):
, right?
I had a client who was justblown away when I was like, were
you ever, you know like bit bya tick when you were younger?
Tell me a little bit about likewe've went through before, dr
Terry and I, with like pans orpandas, right, and what that
actually is, and why we askthese's beauty because we start
to give them more options versusjust this traditional Western
view of what those things aren't.
All those systems aren'tconnected, all cells, all
systems.
That doesn't make sense.
Dr David Wiss (06:33):
So in a 50 minute intake session, if in the last
few minutes I can retellsomeone's story in a way that
they haven't heard it before, itcan build a lot of rapport.
Oh, yeah, yes, and what's thebeauty of rapport?
The therapeutic relationship,trust.
Is this a test?
Dr Teralyn Sell (07:00):
No, but I just want everybody to say that over
and over and over again, becausethe therapeutic relationship is
the biggest change agent ofworking with someone, and that
sounds terrible, but like thebuy change agent of working with
someone, and that the soundsterrible, but like the buy-in of
the whole thing.
Um, it's that, it's thatrelationship, and so I do so you
have, don't you have?
Your aren't you a dietitian aswell, don't you have?
Dr David Wiss (07:19):
Yes, blasphemy on my on my road to becoming a PhD
, I am also a registereddietitian nutritionist.
It's funny, you know I workedas a personal trainer when I
really got into wellness in myearly 20s, after college, and
that sort of led me through gradschool to become a registered
(07:39):
dietitian, started my ownprivate practice and then saw
after a few years that I wantedto go deeper and have worked in
that space since getting my PhD.
Dr Teralyn Sell (07:50):
Now moving more broadly into the field of
mental health, yeah, so what didyou notice as the why did you
want to be a dietitian numberone?
And then, after you were inthat space, what did you notice
were some of the deficits there.
Dr David Wiss (08:06):
Yeah, I definitely had some compromised
life chances.
You know, when I had to resetin my early 20s I didn't come
from a like a track record ofsuccess.
I had some low spots in myearly 20s and I pivoted and I
said, wow, what feels accessibleto me?
And I got really into nutritionfor my own healing journey.
(08:28):
You know, the physicaldimension of wellness
revolutionized me sunlight,sleep, water supplements.
I had one of those rapidtransformations that everyone
kind of hopes they're going tohave that within a few months.
Everyone's like whoa, you'redifferent, what did you do?
Can you show me the way?
And so that path became welllit for me and I thought maybe
(08:50):
nutrition was going to get alittle bit more attention in
upcoming years.
And so I leaned into it.
And you know, when I got toschool to become a dietitian, I
was pretty quickly disappointed.
There's definitely a culturethere where they're teaching you
you're going to be America'snutrition expert, you're going
(09:12):
to work in a hospital, peopleare going to respect you, you're
going to make an impact onpatient lives.
And there was hope.
But when I was in school, I didlearn pretty quickly that a lot
of the information we weregetting seemed to be more geared
toward promoting the foodindustry's interests rather than
(09:33):
promoting public health streetculture.
But I have an antenna thatpicks up agendas and I saw
agendas in the curriculum thatother students didn't see and I
said, hey, are you guys pickingup on this?
(09:53):
We're getting a webinar rightnow about the safety of high
fructose corn syrup from theCorn Refiners Association.
We were told that a calorie isa calorie.
There's nothing wrong with fooddyes.
These things are all safe.
Just make sure people get theright amount of grams of protein
(10:14):
.
And you're going to be amedical nutrition therapist.
And I was scratching my head andpushing back and I started to
really enter that phase wherepeople looked at me like a
renegade what's wrong with thisguy?
Why can't he just join?
Why can't you just do whatwe're all doing?
And I said there's somethingfishy here.
And my nervous system picked itup really early on, and that's
(10:38):
when I knew I wasn't going tofollow a traditional dietetic
path.
There's pathways there for you.
You can work in a hospital, youcan do this.
I knew from the gate I was nevergoing to follow a traditional
dietetic path.
You know there's there'spathways there for you.
You can work in a hospital.
You can do this.
I knew from the gate I wasnever going to do any of those
things, that I was going to sortof blaze my own path.
So my master's thesis wasactually called nutrition and
substance abuse and I took adeep dive into the literature on
(11:00):
how different substances canaffect gastrointestinal health
and people that had addictionhistories being more likely to
be depressed.
How does that play out witheating, overeating, et cetera?
And that's when I got intoeating disorders and food
addiction, what we now callultra processed food addiction.
(11:22):
So yeah, I knew early on that Iwas going to try to step into
some uncomfortable places, andI'm really glad that I have, but
progress has been slow.
Dr Teralyn Sell (11:34):
Yeah, no, I agree with the.
Progress has been slow andsometimes that's the thing it it
.
It takes you from being whatyou need to be, because it's
like why is this so slow?
Why is there such resistanceand so many barriers to entry
here?
Why can't other people just geton board with what we know to
also be true, right?
(11:55):
So, even like the ultraprocessed food stuff, what do
you know to be true with ultraprocessed foods and mental
wellbeing?
Dr David Wiss (12:02):
Yeah, I mean it's crystal clear that when food
undergoes ultra processing, notonly are there additives sugar,
salts, fats, food additives,emulsifiers the list goes on but
there's also a lot of stuffthat's lost from the food during
ultra processing.
A lot of the sensitivephytonutrients and minerals.
(12:25):
They're all stripped duringhigh heat processes and then you
add in, you know, plastics andthe contact with the metals, and
you're getting food thatactivates dopamine, that
registers as rewarding andsurvival promoting.
That's actually a pretty uhnutrient void as well as pro
(12:46):
inflammatory.
So it's.
It's really clever because whena dopamine response is elicited
, right, it actually convincesthe brain that it's doing
something that's favorable, whenthe opposite is true, Right, so
so did you just say that, uh,that foods are made to be
favorable.
Foods are engineered for maximumpalatability, to profit
(13:12):
maximize, and it's done so atthe expense of public health.
Dr Teralyn Sell (13:16):
Where did you learn that?
Where did that first come intofocus for you?
Dr David Wiss (13:20):
Yeah, so when I was an early dietitian, we
actually formed a group calledDietitians for Professional
Integrity and we werewhistleblowing in the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics becauseat the annual conferences there
were a lot of speakers whoworked for the food industry and
at the time those conflicts ofinterest were not disclosed.
(13:43):
So this was the part thatreally activated me early in my
career.
In medicine, when people workfor pharmaceutical companies,
there was a huge push towardsdisclosures and in the nutrition
field, disclosure was notreally a topic.
So we formed a small group ofrenegade dietitians to be able
(14:04):
to pull the curtain back onwhere these conflicts of
interest were.
And basically, we're asking forgreater transparency in our
parent organization.
Where does the funding comefrom?
Why are these positionstatements favoring industry?
You know, why are we sayingit's all foods fit?
(14:27):
Why are we saying thatartificial sweeteners are safe?
What is the agenda here?
And it was a really excitingtime because, you know, part of
me was like, oh, I'm gettingblacklisted.
You know, yeah, this is goingto be challenging for my career,
but I think the biggest partthat came out of that was you
(14:49):
know, michael Moss wrote a bookSalt, sugar, fat.
I think it was 2014.
And that book really opened myeyes to the food industry's use
of, you know, laboratories thatwere used during tobacco
development, and the sameplaybook that tobacco industry
used to maximize the rewardingproperties of their cigarettes
(15:12):
they were now using with food,calculating the bliss point to
the milligram of sugar or sodium.
And, as someone that has asensitive brain, I do have a
history of some addiction stuffin my early 20s and late teens.
You know I could sense thesalience, you know, probably
(15:32):
more than others could.
And, yeah, I became fascinatedin the link between nutrition,
food and neuroscience and howthat affects behavior, and
that's always been my interestas a behavioral health
nutritionist.
Dr Teralyn Sell (15:48):
That's really quite fascinating, and I know
you listen to your talk all day.
Jenn Schmitz (15:53):
I know I'm just like I can't even ask him
questions, because I'm soeloquent how you're saying it.
I'm like I know we got to wrapweight loss into this at some
point, but I'm just going tojust keep listening to your talk
right now, Cause.
Dr Teralyn Sell (16:06):
Well, well, I think it it.
It is such a parallel to whatJen and I talk about with big
pharma and therapists right,it's the same thing, it's the
same thing.
It's like they all took thesame chapter out of a playbook
and they're just like let'srepeat, let's repeat let's
repeat.
Jenn Schmitz (16:25):
Let's repeat Because it works.
Because it works, I mean, itcreates the forever consumer and
you're in it, and I'm sojealous of what you said.
I'm just going to throw thisout and be transparent.
I'm super jealous of this ideathat when you were in school,
you were in a space of likethere were these feelers out
there and I'm just like wait aminute, this doesn't make sense,
(16:48):
right, cause I never got there.
I never got there until afterthe degrees and after 15 years
of practice, right Like I didn'tget there.
So the fact that you had thatinquisition so early on.
That that's profound to mebecause most people don't have
that.
Dr David Wiss (17:08):
There was also a sense of all right, I got to
drink the Kool-Aid a little bitand get on board so I can pass
this exam.
And then I can move on andforget some of this
indoctrination and start tothink about the bigger picture.
Jenn Schmitz (17:22):
Is Red 40 healthy Circle, yes or no?
Okay, yes, fine, I'm just goingto fucking circle.
Yes, because it's all I can doright now.
Dr Teralyn Sell (17:28):
Okay, you know this reminds me of when I first
took one of my very firstaddiction licensure exams years
ago.
The advice I got was whateveryou believe to be the truth,
it's probably the opposite ofthat.
So circle that answer on thereand that's what I did and I
passed and I was like, wow, theywere spot on, you know.
(17:48):
So it was interesting.
Dr David Wiss (17:50):
And the playbook from you know, big pharma and
big food in your example, bigpharma and the mental health
therapy field, big food and thenutrition field has a lot of
similarities, as you mentioned,and their playbook is quite
impressive, right In terms offinding ways to lean on the
(18:13):
social determinants of healthand create emotionally charged
issues that pit people againstthemselves, so that everyone's
focused on individual factorsrather than systemic issues.
And so, yeah, I've really takena deeper dive in recent years
when I started studying thecommercial determinants of
health and being able to see allthe factors that are at play
(18:36):
behind the scenes and howcommercial actors use media
control and gaslight people andbasically have a very clear
agenda to get people fightingamongst themselves so they don't
see the bigger picture.
Jenn Schmitz (18:52):
Yeah, well said.
That's exactly what it is.
Are you running for political?
Dr Teralyn Sell (18:57):
office anytime soon, because I feel like you
could.
Do you have a button?
Yeah, I want to.
I heart David Wiss.
Button Vote for.
David, yeah, I can't like.
Thank you, what do you say?
What do you say now?
Because I know you callyourself a nutritionist and is
that by design?
Because you've you've kind ofpivoted away title registered
(19:19):
dietitian may actually behurting me more than helping me.
Dr David Wiss (19:44):
I am proud of who I progress made in terms of,
you know, getting nutritionintegrated into the healthcare
system, and the ParentOrganization Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics issupposed to be an advocate to
help.
Their 100,000 plusdietitiansians, like you know,
increase in status and I thinkpublic perception of the
(20:08):
registered dietitian is at anall time low and I haven't got
the sense that any progress hasbeen made.
And when you look at the energyin the field, there's this kind
of culture of we got to rally,we got to stick together, let's
go to Washington in March andlet's go rise our collective
(20:30):
voices to get nutritionrecognized in the healthcare
system, and nothing has happened.
My entire career and so thisyear is the first year I did not
renew my membership at theAcademy of Nutrition and
Dietetics.
I said I've been at this for 13years and I am sick of watching
(20:51):
people complain about otherprofessionals moving in on the
space.
People are not elevatingthemselves, they're basically
just upset about other peoplebeing nutritionists.
And I'm like we need tocollaborate, we need to have
intelligent discussions andreally I think that's where I
(21:12):
decided that my annualconference is going to be the
Institute of Functional Medicineand I'm not going to the
nutrition conference anymore.
Welcome.
Dr Teralyn Sell (21:20):
Welcome.
Did you go to the IMMH?
Dr David Wiss (21:23):
or did you?
No, I haven't been to that oneyet, but I'm definitely keeping
it on my radar.
Dr Teralyn Sell (21:29):
It should be.
It's really good.
I went for the first time lastyear.
I haven't gone to the IFM, butI'll go to the IMMH again.
But yeah, I agree.
Jenn Schmitz (21:36):
That's a tough space, for as you're talking,
terry and I both start smiling,nodding at the same time, and I
know exactly what she wasthinking.
And it is this idea that evenwhen we write our titles right
like the therapist,psychotherapist, mental health
(21:59):
therapist there is adissatisfaction that I feel
internally with myself becausethe amount of westernized
education and damage that hasoccurred over the years using
that title, even right Likesometimes I type my name on here
for to come into our programhere, everyone that's watching
on YouTube and sometimes I'mlike I might just write Jen and
for a while I was writingDeprescriber Jen, because I'm
(22:20):
like I don't even like writingtherapist feels yucky, just like
what you're describing, becausewe know the amount of like
damage that's been done withinthis and even though we're
speaking against it and tryingto talk about like the
alternative perspectives to it,which we're part of it.
Like, yeah, we are, we are partof it, you know, so I get that.
Dr Teralyn Sell (22:42):
A cognitive dissonance is surreal at this
point.
Dr David Wiss (22:46):
Yes, I struggle with titles quite a bit because
the you know, the areas that I'mmost aligned with are
nutritional psychiatry andnutritional psychology and I
can't call myself a nutritionalpsychiatrist because that's
misleading, because I'm not apsychiatrist or a nutritional
psychologist.
I have a doctorate, I practicefunctional medicine, but it
(23:08):
would be misleading to callmyself a functional medicine
doctor.
So I'm left with this title,confusion right.
And I've, you know, movedthrough some different ways to
describe myself and I've beenusing mental health nutritionist
lately and it's not a utilizedterm, so we'll see if it picks
(23:31):
up.
Dr Teralyn Sell (23:31):
We're taking up our own.
It's funny because I've made updifferent titles for myself,
because nobody understands whatit is that I do.
And I will tell you this I havea doctorate in psychology and
in this space nobody thinks it'senough, like it's just.
(23:52):
It's crazy the amount ofpushback I get for not being a
real doctor.
If I were a real doctor, then Icould talk about big pharma, big
food, all these things thatyour real doctors aren't talking
about, by the way, none of themare talking about any of this
stuff.
So what is your doctorate in?
Dr David Wiss (24:07):
Yeah, I have a PhD from UCLA in public health
and I had a minor in healthpsychology and I loved health
psychology.
I had such a blast in thatdepartment, yes, yes.
Quick side note criticism aboutmy field as registered
dietitians.
There are levels, right thesame way there are for
registered nurses or physicaltherapists.
There, registered dietitians,there are levels right the same
way there are for registerednurses or a physical therapist.
(24:28):
There are dietitians that don'thave master's degrees.
There's master's leveldietitian.
And then there's some of usthat have doctorates and the
healthcare system recognizesthem as identical.
So insurance would pay the samefor an RD who had a bachelor's
versus an RD who had a doctorate.
(24:48):
So it basically forces those ofus at the higher level outside
of the healthcare system.
Dr Teralyn Sell (24:54):
Very much so.
The difference between amaster's level therapist and a
PhD in private practice is acouple dollars an hour per
insurance, a couple dollars.
So it's really ridiculous.
There's really not muchincentive for anyone to move
past the master's level.
So, yeah, it's really.
It's so similar, these systemsare so similar.
(25:16):
I didn't realize the parallelshere.
Dr David Wiss (25:19):
Parallels and the same way that you know, venture
capital firms have, you know,bought up, like insurance
contracts, to promote telehealthservices with mental health
therapists and are basicallyoffering people work from home.
You'll get a full schedule.
Jenn Schmitz (25:37):
I get an email every week.
I get a spam text or email onit every single week.
Dr David Wiss (25:41):
You'll get this busy schedule, you'll get a low
rate, but you don't have to doanything, and that essentially
just drives the competitive ratedown.
The same thing has happened inmy field, where dietitians have
been decimated and are workingfor less and less, and the rate
for dietitian services is goingdown, going down.
(26:04):
It's less than it was when Istarted 13 years ago.
Dr Teralyn Sell (26:08):
That's insane.
What 13 years ago?
It's less than that.
That's insane.
Dr David Wiss (26:13):
My rate has gone up, but that's because I don't
work in the healthcare system.
Dr Teralyn Sell (26:17):
Right right, All right.
So here's the question du jour.
When we look at the differencebetween a dietician and a
nutritionist who has actuallybeen to school, what are the
differences that you see?
Having done and had both, Likewhat do you?
How can we differentiate thatin the general population?
Dr David Wiss (26:38):
Yeah, nutritionist has no formal
definition.
So technically anyone couldcall themselves a nutritionist.
And I think that's wherethere's a lot of contention and
disagreement and debate is thatyou know a registered dietitian
when I started it was just RD,and then you know we moved into
registered dietitian,nutritionist.
(27:00):
So a registered dietitian is akind of nutritionist.
It's a specific type and thatit is recognized by the
healthcare system.
So in a hospital or in aneating disorder clinic there
tends to be a requirement for aregistered dietitian and you
know that makes it the norm, Ithink, or maybe the mainstream
(27:24):
nutritionist, but there's plentyof others.
There's a CNS certifiednutrition specialist and any
other allied health professionalthat gets some sort of training
can call themselves anutritionist.
So it's a murky area becausethe criticism is that someone
(27:46):
got a three-month online degreeand now they call themselves a
nutritionist and so it's createdthis culture war in my field
where you know the dietitiansare like we're not nutritionists
, we're dietitians.
And we went to school and wehad to do this and we did an
internship and we sat for anexam and I've been so exhausted
(28:09):
watching the infighting going onfor all these years and you
know I do remember in school andin the internship, this message
of you know, you're thedietician, you're the expert,
you are the one and seeing thatsort of play out you know.
I remember when I was in myinternship and I went to a
hospital, they sure didn't treatme like the expert, right?
(28:31):
I was like the bottom of thetotem pole in the hospital.
They sure didn't treat me likethe expert, right, I was like
the bottom of the totem pole inthe hospital, right.
And so there are a lot ofpeople that are disenfranchised
and disillusioned.
In my field I've had a lot ofcolleagues leave basically and
say this isn't a worthwhilecareer.
I'm not making any money and Ithink the biggest challenge of
it is that there isn't.
(28:52):
I have a lot of jobsatisfaction, but for a lot of
my colleagues there isn't a lotof job satisfaction, and this is
really based on the assumptionsthat are made about what the
job entails, right?
So if someone's a dietician,there does seem to be people
that are, you know, attracted tothat person because they want a
(29:14):
calorie calculated meal plan,they want to be given a very
specific diet.
And you know, I think dietitianlends itself to go see a
dietitian when you need someoneto do some calculations for you
right To figure out exactly howmany grams of protein you need
(29:35):
and how to fit that in, and Ihave never done that type of
work.
But in 13 years, the amount ofpeople that reach out to me
because they assume that my joblooks a certain way.
I spend a lot of time managingpeople's assumptions and
providing some re-educationabout what kind of work you can
(29:56):
do together.
Jenn Schmitz (29:58):
Right, is that called informed consent?
Like, are you informedconsenting the shit out of
people?
Okay, you tied this right intothis idea that we started with.
Tell us how the idea ofnutrition and weight loss, that
concept Okay, cause you'retalking about calorie counting.
Okay, like, we're talking abouta very structured, itemized
(30:21):
like table of what.
Here's what you follow, here'swhat you are taking in.
Tell us when we started here,just so everybody knows, we said
to David we said we're figuringthis hook out.
Tell us the hill that you'regoing to die on now, because the
hill that you were going to dieon eight years ago is different
than the hill you're going todie on today.
And your hook you came up withright here is people are gaslit
(30:43):
into believing this idea thatnutrition is only relevant for
weight loss.
Dr David Wiss (30:47):
Yes.
Jenn Schmitz (30:48):
What does that mean?
How has it?
Dr David Wiss (30:49):
changed.
The Western medicine modelusually necessitates a referral
from an MD for these ongoingservices and so the dietician
was sort of built in.
If there was type two diabetes,perhaps hypertension or BMI
(31:10):
above 30, that would generate areferral to a dietitian, and the
Western medicine model has longheld the assumption that if
someone is in a larger body, ifthey lose weight, a lot of their
comorbidities will go away.
So the dietitian has beenlinked to this referral.
For I'm going to help someonelose weight and you know, when I
was in school I was soembarrassed One of their major
(31:33):
teaching tools were these foodmodels.
You guys ever seen thosedietitians are like, given these
models that help teach peopleportion sizes?
That, like that was theeducation in the outpatient
clinic is that you were going totell someone what their
calories were and what anappropriate portion size was for
(31:54):
them to meet those caloricneeds.
And I just remember thinkingthis completely ignores all the
neuroscience of eating.
All the information we haveabout behavior change, barriers
related to trauma, the entiremental health picture is
completely ignored by thisassumption that people eat a
(32:14):
certain way because they don'tknow what the appropriate
portion size is right.
Dr Teralyn Sell (32:20):
I'm thinking wait, I went to school, spent
all this money to be given aplate With the little pictures
on it With the thing and learn acalorie counter, but that
reminds me of therapists, though, going to school and learning
how to, you know, do amanualized workbook for people.
Like it's the same shit.
Like it's the same, it'sexactly so it takes into account
(32:42):
zero human experience nothingart.
Dr David Wiss (32:45):
There you go, one size fits all and it's centered
on the assumption of personalresponsibility, which you you
know, of course I'm not against.
I'm all for personalresponsibility, uh, but I I
think I think that's done anumber on the food world,
because people have internalizedthis idea that if there is a
(33:06):
change they want to make andthey're unable to make it, it's
because they don't have theright information or they don't
want it bad enough.
And then you internalize theshame and the weight stigma
around it and then it justperpetuates the disappointment
and isolation.
And yeah, I'll never it's justlike the addiction model.
Dr Teralyn Sell (33:26):
Yeah, it does, because I'm also thinking about
metabolic weight gain.
When you're on certainmedications and I remember Jen
and I worked in the same placeit was a prison and these guys
would be put on thesemedications.
They'd gain 80, 90, 100 poundsand then they'd be put on a
special diet and I'm like I'msorry, but that diet is not
(33:50):
going to counteract thismetabolic weight gain from this
medication, but it's going tomake you feel like a fricking
failure because you can't do itright.
Jenn Schmitz (33:59):
Well, and not to mention, like the gut dysbiosis
that exists for theseindividuals, going all the way
back to like meds they took whenthey were younger.
Medical interventions, trauma,like come on Right, but like
that's nope.
Dr David Wiss (34:14):
So yeah, my group practice, which is called
nutrition and recovery, hasbrought dietitians into mental
health treatment centers, and sofor a long time, you know, we
run groups and do one on onecounseling for adolescents and
adults that have addictionhistories or other mental health
challenges, and I've seen thatall the time the patient is
(34:39):
gaining weight from a medicationand this is when they say, oh,
bring the dietician in, hey, fixthis right.
And that the dietician's role isthere for, dietitian's role is
there for calorie centric, mathcentric, weight management
(34:59):
purposes, rather than helpingsomeone understand gut dysbiosis
, inflammation, eating tooptimize neurotransmitter
function all these incrediblethings that a nutritionist
should be able to do getsoverlooked and it gets reduced
to this more almost vanity,focused, appearance focused
approach to food, and I thinkthat's given nutrition such a
(35:22):
bad reputation.
So I've been screaming fromthat hilltops sanity before
vanity.
Let's use nutrition to improvemental health and let's use it
to improve quality of life,relational health, being able to
look the world in the eye,build self-efficacy, and if we
can move past thesereductionistic models of
(35:44):
calories in, calories out, Ithink the field could go much
further.
Dr Teralyn Sell (35:50):
I agree 100% and I watch these dieticians on
TikTok and they do that.
It's just the calorie and nocalorie is different than
another calorie.
And although that might be true, you know, a calorie is a
calorie, maybe, but what aboutthe nutritional value of the
food?
Right Like, I can eat a,000calories of Doritos, correct,
(36:15):
and lose weight.
Or I could eat 1,000 caloriesof nutritious food and lose
weight.
It's so archaic, but how am Igoing to feel on the Doritos?
Right Like, how am I going tofeel?
Jenn Schmitz (36:24):
It's so archaic.
Are we back in the early 2000s,eating Snackwell 100-calorie
packs every single fucking dayand going it's okay because it's
only 100 calories?
It's such an archaic thoughtprocess.
We have evolved beyond that,research has evolved beyond that
, the field of nutrition hasevolved beyond that, but yet
(36:46):
that's still part of what'shappening.
Is what you're saying, david?
This is still very real.
Dr David Wiss (36:52):
It's still very real and it is a message that
does support the food industry'sinterests to get people focused
on quantities of food ratherthan the qualities of food, and
that's why the ultra-processedfood conversation is so
important.
They're like well, you just gotto count your calories.
Here's an app and, by the way,here's a reduced calorie version
(37:15):
for you because we're here tohelp.
And I've also noticed thatthere's a particular
psychological profile associatedwith people that are really
into calories, because it reallyfeels empowering.
Some people are able tomanipulate those variables and
increase their exercise, reducetheir calories and move their
(37:36):
weight and they kind of movethrough the world with an
assumption that you know that'show it is and that's how it
should be and if, if you know,knowledge is power, you know you
can do this.
And it's almost like um, apersonal trainer kind of mindset
, in a little bit of like no,it's simple math, just do it
right, I'll help you.
(37:57):
And those of us that are reallyinterested in mental health,
trauma-informed work know thatit's much more complex and
nuanced.
Jenn Schmitz (38:06):
Yeah, you can't outgrit addiction in that way.
You can't outgrit these things.
You can't outgrit a reallyshitty food intake of what
you're eating.
You might think that there'sthis I don't have enough
resiliency or I got to fightharder.
But when you're putting in yourmouth and into your body things
(38:26):
that are actuallycontraindicated, things your
body can't process, things thatare actually toxic to your body,
things that are actually toxicto your body, things that are
ruining those neurotransmitterpathways, you're trying to
outgrit something.
Right?
You got to be stronger.
All the addiction clients wehave.
I'm not strong enough.
I got to be stronger.
No, actually, there's just acomplete non-optimization of
(38:47):
your brain right now.
That's happening because ofwhat you're putting in your body
.
So that theory, that battle cryI think that's out there within
this is like, well, I'm justnot tough enough and strong
enough, right?
So we have clients that come tous all the time.
I had one, like two weeks ago,who got so mad when I said when
you're ready to stop tracking onan app all of the things you
(39:10):
eat and all the calories you eat, and I don't throw people on
the bus, right?
But it was a nutritionist.
I went to see a nutritionistand said this is how you've got
to do it, right.
And they're showing me the app,they're showing me the
paperwork, right, like that theywere given.
And I said you let me know whenyou're ready to stop doing that
and we start to just payattention to the types of foods
that you're eating and you stopcounting calories.
(39:30):
Your life's going to fuckingchange and they got very upset
with me.
Dr Teralyn Sell (39:34):
They haven't come back to see me since.
Well, it's because diet cultureis such big money.
I mean, losing weight is bigmoney.
Jenn Schmitz (39:39):
It is, it is so even for nutritionists.
Dr Teralyn Sell (39:42):
You know, if you want to build a practice
like, do it on weight loss,because you're going to get the
most clients from that.
Dr David Wiss (39:48):
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Teralyn Sell (39:54):
I was saying to David before the episode
started.
I said it's really funny to mebecause I'll have.
I don't do weight loss, weightloss girl, everyone.
I do mental health.
But inevitably I'll ask, likewhat are your top three goals of
seeing seeing me blah, blah,blah, number one to lose weight.
I'm like, okay, all right, okay, we'll, we'll start there.
You know, it's interesting.
(40:15):
And there's also this uh, uh,there was a big, uh eating
disorder clinic near me that Iwas touring and they had out in
the middle of their lunch tableslike little bags of chips, you
know, like your Doritos and yourpotato chips, and all this
stuff.
And I said, why do you havethis here?
Well, because all calories arecalories.
Jenn Schmitz (40:37):
And I was like Talk about it, david.
I want to hear about that now.
We don't have a ton of time,but can you talk about this idea
of of disordered eating thatdevelops within this context, or
eating disorders that arealready present, and this is the
type of things that are beinggiven to these individuals?
Yes, like, can you talk?
Dr David Wiss (40:58):
about that briefly.
We started off saying that thefood industry has an agenda to
promote, you know, the caloriecentric model and to emphasize
personal responsibility, andthat's what trickles down
through training for dietitians.
Dietitians are the gatekeepersin eating disorder treatment, so
it makes sense that thatphilosophy would be prevalent.
(41:19):
Eating disorders are, you know,a really complex area because a
lot of eating disorders not allof them are characterized by
extreme fears, phobias andrestrictive tendencies.
So having a message of foodinclusivity and food positivity
is actually a good thing for asubset of people that have
(41:42):
eating disorders.
And I think you know, generallyspeaking, anorexia nervosa is
the eating disorder that has themost, you know, morbidity,
mortality, and it's scary topeople.
So in the field of eatingdisorders, it seems like
everyone prioritizes therestrictive tendencies of the
classic anorexia nervosa patient, which, in a case like that,
(42:06):
being able to promote a chip ora cookie, it actually could be a
very positive, recoveryoriented thing.
However, that subset of peopleis taken as the gold standard
truth for everyone that has aneating disorder.
So the food philosophy in thiscenter is very anorexia centric
(42:28):
and people are afraid to haveany alternative philosophies or
any competing theories becausethey're so protective of the
vulnerable person with therestrictive eating disorder.
So it's created a culture ofthis is how all eating disorders
are treated and used, and soyou could get someone in with a
(42:49):
substance use disorder, a foodaddiction, a binge eating
disorder, and they areessentially treated the same way
that someone with orthorexia,restrictive anorexia, presents.
You know from the stance offood philosophies.
And then we wonder why there'sso few treatment completions and
people are so dissatisfiedleaving treatment.
(43:11):
Is that there has been a lackof nuance in the eating disorder
space to be able to understandthe complexities of addiction,
metabolic disorder, and that thefield of eating disorders is
crumbling.
And that's really the spacethat I've occupied for so many
of these years watching theprofessional organizations get
(43:31):
smaller.
I went to Academy of EatingDisorders conference a few years
ago and they didn't even have a.
For so many of these yearswatching the professional
organizations get smaller, Iwent to Academy of Eating
Disorders conference a few yearsago and they didn't even have a
budget to serve us lunch.
I flew there, spent thousandsof dollars and I was in line in
the hotel buying a sandwich fromthe coffee shop for lunch.
I was like, oh, I'm nevercoming back here.
These organizations areshrinking and angry.
(43:54):
Angry about, you know, issuesrelated to weight stigma and
other important issues.
But again, it's all infightingand no progress.
Jenn Schmitz (44:06):
Right, it's all a one size fits.
All it's this, all thisapproach is just a one size fits
all right, Whether it's alittle disordered eating and
orthorexia, you've got bingeeating disorder.
Your bulimia doesn't matter,it's just the one size fits all.
Here's your potato chips on thetable.
Dr David Wiss (44:20):
Yeah, when people live in fight or flight, it's
hard to live in nuance in grayareas, and I think that's part
of the grand design as well.
Dr Teralyn Sell (44:29):
I have one more question, because this is
something that comes up a lot,and I just wanted to get your
take on this, because some ofthe pushback that I get on
social media or in person iseating healthy is too expensive,
and so I was wondering how youmight overcome something like
(44:50):
that.
When you hear those things,what are your thoughts?
Dr David Wiss (45:00):
Yeah, there are costs in this world and
obviously we use money as ourprimary measurement of it.
But if someone has the abilityto spend time learn how to cook,
you can buy food that's notoverly priced and learn how to
prepare it in ways that areenjoyable and even palatable.
But you know, especially livingin Los Angeles, right, like you
(45:27):
know, finances are a majorconcern with nutrition and I
would go as far as to say thatnutrition is a major unspoken
tool of oppression tomarginalized groups that don't
have access to high quality food, particularly in the prison
system and addiction treatment,other institutional settings.
But yeah, a lot of people justdon't want to get their hands
dirty.
There's barriers to cooking andcleaning, but it's probably the
(45:48):
biggest lever that I can pullis to move someone from being
averse to the kitchen to likebringing some joy there, being
able to turn on a song or getinto the right mindset and make
something that's not onlynutritious but also deeply
symbolic about a commitment tohealth, connecting to food,
(46:10):
connecting to nature and livingin an ecosystem that fosters
health, wellness rather thanillness.
Dr Teralyn Sell (46:19):
I love that.
Jenn Schmitz (46:20):
I love it too, oh, that's a great spot to wrap up
Sanity before vanity.
People, If you take anythingfrom this today, you need that.
Do you have that on a t-shirt?
Dr Teralyn Sell (46:30):
I know, do you have that?
It is some merch.
Jenn Schmitz (46:33):
Are you on a billboard in LA that says that
with your face on it?
Because if not, you need tomake that shit happen.
I'm getting there.
Dr David Wiss (46:40):
I also want to add that there are apps out
there that don't track caloriesand don't track macros.
There are other approaches tolooking at food qualitatively
rather than quantitatively, andthey're not as successful as the
MyFitnessPals and the calorietracking apps of the world,
because that's what people areprogrammed to believe that they
(47:02):
want.
But there are other approachesout there that are more geared
toward giving people what theyneed, which is a look at
qualitative nutrition overquantitative nutrition.
So my app is called Wise MindNutrition.
Jenn Schmitz (47:16):
Oh, love it, love it, yes.
Wise Mind Nutrition.
Oh, I'm going to check that out.
Okay, he has an app everybody.
Nutrition for mental health.
Dr Teralyn Sell (47:25):
Love it All right everybody.
Jenn Schmitz (47:26):
We'll put that in the show notes for you too, just
so you know All right, we areJen and Terry, the
whistleblowing mental maverick,deep throating informants that
are wrapping up today with DrDavid Wyss.
Thank you for coming on the show, david, it's been awesome, you
have brought some insight to ourlisteners that I guarantee you
they did not have, and some goodspots for getting inquisitive,
(47:48):
curious about.
So thank you for being on theshow.
Guys, if you want to send usyour gaslit stories, you can do
that at thegaslittruthpodcast atgmailcom.
You can also hit us up on anyof our socials.
Dm us.
We are on all the big ones.
Let us know what you think.
Only give us five stars and ifyou're feeling so inclined, buy
us a coffee, because, guess what?
(48:08):
We're doing this shit for freeand we're advocating in that way
.
So thank you again, david, forcoming on, and that's a wrap
everybody.
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